Monthlies: Version 876
by SCWLC
Summary: There's a heating pack with legs travelling with the Avatar and his friends. The girls take advantage of it. Zutara.


Title: Monthlies: Version 876

Author: SCWLC

Disclaimer: I don't think I even own the basic concept for the fic.

Rating: PG-13

Summary: There's a heating pack with legs travelling with the Avatar and his friends. The girls take advantage of it. Zutara.

Notes: This has no particular timeline. I just ran across a few of the "Katara's having her period and Zuko helps her with her cramps" fics and decided to give a crack at the idea myself. Hence the title. Yes, I know I should be working on Airbender's Child. I just like doing one-shots. They're relaxing and fun.

* * *

The first time it happened, it was Toph.

She'd started having her moon blood just that morning for the first time. Luckily Katara had already talked to the girl about . . . girl things so there was no panic, but Sokka had gone wide-eyed and left the camp to go hunting when he'd discovered the news.

Zuko didn't know, but he had a sister who had developed early and he knew what that angry, pained look meant. So, while he couldn't join Sokka now, he could keep his head down and say nothing to any of the girls. Aang didn't know better and practically had his head bitten off when he asked why Sifu Toph wasn't teaching him today.

That was a conversation Zuko never wanted to have with the monk-boy again.

Toph had been muttering about bad design all day, when suddenly she fixed Zuko with an intent look. "Sparky," she said. "Come here, wouldja?"

"What do you need, Toph?" he asked, trying to keep a level voice and friendly-but-not-too-friendly tone.

"You can make your hands really warm, right?" she asked.

"Yes . . ." he said, unsure of where she was going with this.

She shot him a stern look and ordered, "Sit down here," she said, pointing to the ground behind her. He did as he was told because to do anything else was a terrifying thought. She grabbed one hand, placing it on her stomach, very low down, and the other on her back. "Start warming, Sparky," she said.

He did. The response was rapid. The girl sighed and sagged against him. He stayed for a half an hour, acting as a heating pack before starting to get up. "Well, I have to help with-"

"Nothing," Katara sang from the other side of the camp. "You're totally excused."

"What?" demanded Aang. "Why does Zuko get to sit there and do nothing – awk!" Aang found himself flying through the air involuntarily as Toph twisted a foot on the ground, hitting the Avatar with a column of earth.

So Zuko spent the whole day getting irritated looks from Aang, grateful looks from Sokka and amused ones from Katara and Suki.

The second time it was Suki.

Zuko was shaken awake in the middle of the night by Sokka, who looked rather pale. "What's wrong?" he asked, sitting up quickly.

"Just . . . come," Sokka told him. Zuko followed him to the tent Sokka had finally openly admitted to sharing with his girlfriend, and came in to see a few bloodstained rags and Suki, her eyes narrowed and irritated.

"What are you doing, Sokka?" she demanded before wincing and curling into herself.

"It worked for Toph, it can work for you," he said. "Zuko, get down there and make with the heating hands." He felt his eyes bulge. This was . . . it felt inappropriate.

He looked at Suki instead. "Do you want me to uh . . ." he waved his hands a little.

"Since you're here already," she said begrudgingly.

Zuko dropped in behind the Kyoshi warrior and placed an already rapidly warming hand on roughly the same places he had on Toph. Suki reached over, adjusted his positioning, then sighed. "Better?" Sokka asked her.

"Yes," she smiled sappily at her boyfriend. "You are the best." After they wouldn't stop kissing, Zuko threatened to withdraw if they didn't cut it out. Suki threatened to slit his throat with her fans if he stopped, but she also agreed to stop kissing Sokka while Zuko was taking the edge off her pain.

The third time, he was actually just settling into bed for the night when Katara showed up at his door, looking nervous. "Can I help you?" he asked.

She bit her lip and said, "I can't really take it tonight. Toph and Suki both swear by the 'magic firebending hands'." She made a gesture, indicating she was quoting someone else as she said it. Zuko sighed, he hadn't wanted to be up half the night, but who was he to begrudge the girls something to help with the pain of the cramps he'd heard far too much about? More than that, though, he'd wondered if Katara would ever ask him. She took on a lot that sometimes he didn't think the others knew about.

"Come here," he said, and pulled the covers back. She crawled in at once, curling up next to him. Zuko put one hand on the spot he'd learned was the most important one, and the other on her back, and was rewarded with a small moan and wriggle.

It was the wriggle that caused all his problems. Because he'd long thought that Katara was very pretty, and she was unattached and he was a teenaged boy. That one wriggle sent every lithe curve of her against him, and had him thinking things he shouldn't be thinking with a girl suffering from her moon time. Least of all a waterbender who he'd worked so hard to gain respect from.

So he carefully shifted his hips just far enough away from her that she wasn't pressed right up against him _there_, and kept on warming.

"That is so nice," she said, and sighed, pressing into him further. "Every girl needs her own firebender, I think."

"Oh?' he asked, a little amused. "You're thinking of . . . what? Moon time slavery?"

Katara nodded. "Something like that. A law that says at moon time a girl can demand the services of a firebender no matter what."

"What if he doesn't want to offer his services?" Zuko asked, willing to go along with the ridiculous conversation as long as it kept Katara in a good mood. He had no intention of upsetting a girl who could play with him like a puppet if she so chose. Actually, it was pretty much his policy with all the girls in his life that he do nothing to upset them when they were like this.

Katara 'hmmed'. "Obviously he needs to have a good excuse not to," she said. "Like he has a girlfriend who would get nasty if he did something like that." She wriggled backwards, and Zuko held his breath, expecting her to leap out of the bed, maybe call him a pervert. Somehow, she didn't notice the significant bulge she'd just rubbed her enticing rear end into. It took all his self-control not to rub back.

"How," he paused, clearing his throat. "How would someone be able to have an excuse like that at the drop of a hat?" Zuko inquired. "Not everyone can, you know."

"Well," Katara replied, slowly. "I don't know about anyone else, but I know you could have a girlfriend any time you wanted." As she spoke, she flipped over, facing him. Zuko wasn't able to respond to that surprising statement, because after she spoke, she kissed him. He forgot all about moon time, he forgot about not upsetting her, he forgot about not thinking what he was now thinking as he found himself rolling her under him.

It was only after they'd wound down, the kisses turning slow and sleepy, that he recalled her supposed reasons for being there. Suddenly, Zuko stiffened and looked at her with narrowed eyes and a suspicious glance. "You're not having your bleeding, are you?"

"Nope," she said, nuzzling at his jaw. "That was last week. I'm a waterbender. I can make it mostly better for myself."

"This was just an excuse?" he asked her.

Katara snorted. "I've been waiting for you to make a move for_ever_, Zuko. I decided subtle wasn't going to cut it."

"Oh," he said. "I assume this means you're not going to rent me out to Toph and Suki for their bleeding days?"

"Only if they give me really good rates," she told him. "Like not telling Sokka when I spend the night with you."

"I can live with that," Zuko told her.

"Good. Now start the heat up again, firebender."

"Bossy."

"You know you love it."

And really, he kinda did.


End file.
